Privacy policy
Last updated October 16, 2026
Chinese For Real collects as little as it can. This page explains what we store and why.
What we store when you get a name
When you ask for Chinese names, we save your English first name, the gender and the two words you chose, and the names we suggested, so the link to your result keeps working. We also save your approximate country (from our hosting provider, never your exact location) to see where our visitors are. Your English surname is only used to choose a Chinese surname and is never saved.
When you finish choosing, we save your order of the names, your answer to each this-or-that, how long it took, the video link you came from (if any) and your approximate country (from our hosting provider, never your exact location).
What we store when you rank
Rankings are saved the same way: the items you picked, their order, your answers and how long it took.
Friends who vote
When a friend votes on your names, their choices are saved with your result so you can see what your friends picked. We don't ask friends for their names.
Who can see results
Anyone with the link to a result can see it, including the English first name it was made for. Result pages are not shown in search engines.
Anonymous ID
Your browser gets a random ID in a cookie called sorter_anon, so we can tell which results are yours. It is not linked to your name, email address or any account. There are no accounts on Chinese For Real.
Stored in your browser
Your browser keeps your choices in progress, the results you made and your light or dark mode choice. This stays on your device, and clearing the site's data removes it.
Analytics
We use PostHog in cookieless mode to count page views and actions such as getting a name, playing a sound or sharing a card, together with your approximate country. It sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser.
Your IP address
To stop abuse and to count visitors, we briefly process your IP address. It is never stored with your results.
Our rate limiter (Upstash) uses it to limit how often one connection can ask for names, and forgets it within a few minutes. Our analytics turns it, together with your browser type, into a one-way code that changes every day; the IP address itself is not kept there. The approximate country saved with your names and results, and sent with our analytics, is worked out from it by our hosting provider (Vercel); we keep only the country.
Service providers
Our hosting provider (Vercel, which also sees IP addresses in its server logs), our database (Supabase), our analytics provider (PostHog) and our rate limiter (Upstash) process this data for us.
How long we keep data
Results are kept so that shared links keep working. Write to us and we will delete a result.
Children
Chinese For Real is not meant for children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their data.
Changes
We may update this policy. The date above shows the current version.